inspire

Too Busy to Keep Up? Develop Resilience.

Resilient (riˆzilyÉnt): able to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed; able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions. Wow. Talk about the perfect description for leading an organization in the current business environment! Today’s business leaders need an increasingly diverse and sophisticated array of skills, traits, and aptitudes….

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Are You Engaging? Funny, smart, and easy to dance with is not enough these days

You may be funny, smart, and easy to dance with, but if you are not engaging employees on an ongoing basis, all of your work in developing a strategic plan will be for naught. In my last two blogs, we talked about informing and inspiring employees during implementation of the strategic plan. The last piece…

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How to Avoid “Hitting the Wall” in Your Strategic Plan

I focus a lot of my time and energy on helping clients remember the importance of ongoing communications as their strategic plan unfolds. Keeping employees informed on a regular basis helps to keep the finish line in sight and ensures that everyone runs the same race. But getting from where you are now to where…

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Is Everyone In Your Organization Running the Same Race?

Picture the following scenario. A thousand people stand bunched up at the starting line, poised to run a marathon. The runners nervously jog in place and stretch their limbs to stay loose. You can feel the excitement and anticipation in the air as the race is about to start. Slowly the starter raises his pistol,…

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Are We Short-Changing our Middle Managers?

Every once in a while you run across a statistic or bit of information that really makes you sit up and take notice. Here’s the latest one for me. According to the ASTD (American Society for Training & Development), the ranks of middle managers have significantly declined over the past two years while their responsibilities…

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Are You Ready for the Pendulum Swing?

Without question, the past recession has hit many companies hard. But as business leaders struggling to keep our companies afloat, we sometimes forget that it’s been hard on employees as well, including those who managed to keep their jobs. According to a survey conducted earlier this year by Kelton Research, today’s employees are feeling under-empowered,…

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Are You Inspiring or Dousing Innovation?

Seeing as how summer is supposed to include some rest and relaxation, I took advantage of a rare day off last week and went to Sea World (one of the many perks of living in San Diego). I especially enjoyed the Shamu “House of Douse” show, in which several large killer whales do their best…

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Creativity: The New Leadership Imperative

Last week I wrote about how the IBM report, “Capitalizing on Complexity: Insights from the Global Chief Executive Study,” suggested that a majority of CEOs around the globe felt ill-prepared to deal with the increasing complexity in today’s business world. In response to this finding, IBM asked business leaders to prioritize the three most important…

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Set Phasers on “Inform”

January is a time when many organizations present new and/or updated goals to guide behavior during the year ahead. Often, these goals have been weeks or even months in the making. Yet many leaders feel that all they need to do now is communicate the goals once and then everyone can go back to business…

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How to Inform, Inspire and Engage Employees in Today’s World

Have you ever noticed that no matter how much some things change, others remain the same? The modern workplace has changed almost beyond recognition, yet, many companies still manage their employees as if we were in the 80’s. Twenty-five years ago, managers basically gave employees tasks to complete, providing only as much detail as needed…

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How to Inform, Inspire and Engage Employees in Today’s World

Have you ever noticed that no matter how much some things change, others remain the same? The modern workplace has changed almost beyond recognition, yet, many companies still manage their employees as if we were in the 80’s. Twenty-five years ago, managers basically gave employees tasks to complete, providing only as much detail as needed…

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